What Greater Gift
by nicnac918
Summary: "I'm sorry, but you don't have to be embarrassed. I would never judge you for your oddity," Ford assured it, holding his hand out. The kitten approached more tentatively than it had the first time, but after another sniff of each finger, it rubbed its head up against Ford's hand and began purring once again. So. Ford was adopting the kitten.


AN: To be clear, this does not take place in the same universe as my other story, Sixer the Cat, however the Sixer in this story is intended to be a parallel version of the same character.

Also, fair warning, this went to a sadder place than I was expecting when I started. Just don't be surprised guys.

* * *

Ford should be in the library right now. Tomorrow he would be defending his thesis. Yesterday he had been convinced it was presentable, polished, and perfect. Today he was convinced the entire thing was a train wreck and the committee would sooner laugh in his face than grant him his doctorate. Ergo, right now he needed to be in the library to quintuple-check… everything; he was going to have to check over everything. But instead of being in the library he was frozen in the middle of the quad having a staring contest with a kitten.

The kitten was in a cardboard box sitting just off the main pathway through the center of campus. Across the flap of the box someone had written "FREE KITTENS TO A GOOD HOME." Kittens with an "s" as in multiple, but there was only one kitten in the box. Presumably there had been a whole litter in there initially, and this last one had sat there watching as one by one people had taken away all his siblings, his playmates, his best friends and now he was left there all alone, and Ford was not identifying with a cat right now. He most certainly was not going to take the cat home. For one thing he had a roommate, and Fiddleford… actually probably wouldn't care if Ford adopted a kitten. He'd grown up on a hog farm; he was used to having animals around. Regardless, Ford was not adopting the kitten.

The kitten opened its tiny pink mouth and let out a tiny little plaintive mew.

Okay, so Ford still definitely was not adopting the kitten, but there was nothing wrong with giving it a few scratches behind the ear before he headed on to the library. He crouched down and offered the kitten his hand, and it sniffed every single one of Ford's fingers individually before rubbing its face against Ford's hand and beginning to purr. Ford reached to scratch behind its ear and the kitten leaned into it and purred louder.

"You're a very friendly kitten aren't you?" Ford observed. Very friendly, and it had such fluffy soft grey fur that felt very nice to pet. "I can't imagine why nobody wanted you." The kitten didn't respond to that comment, largely because it was a cat, but Ford had found that question a difficult one to answer regardless of intelligence levels.

After a minute, or five, Ford decided he really ought to be going, and he was done petting the kitten. The kitten for its part had apparently decided it wasn't done being pet because when Ford pulled his hand away it reached up with its paw like it was trying to grab Ford's hand and hold it there. That's when Ford noticed something he hadn't before: the kitten had polydactyly. Inspecting each of its front paws uncovered that, including the dewclaws, the kitten had a total of six claws on each. When Ford had grabbed either paw to look at them the kitten had mewed and tried to tug them away like it was self-conscious about its paws, and Ford was one hundred percent identifying with the cat now.

"I'm sorry, but you don't have to be embarrassed. I would never judge you for your oddity," Ford assured it, holding his hand out. The kitten approached more tentatively than it had the first time, but after another sniff of each finger, it rubbed its head up against Ford's hand and began purring once again.

So. Ford was adopting the kitten.

* * *

Fiddleford balanced the kitten on one palm and used the other hand to lift its tail up, causing the kitten to squawk at the indignity. "He's definitely a boy," he declared. As soon as he had Ford snatched the kitten away and held him properly. His cat was a pet, not livestock.

"I'm sorry about that, little feller. It's just the only way to check," Fiddleford said, offering his hand out. The kitten forgave him, or at least was willing to allow himself to be pet. "There you go. You don't bear no grudges, do you Six-Toes?"

Ford snatched the kitten away yet again. "Are you making fun of my cat?"

"Stanford," Fiddleford said with a very dry, unamused look.

"Right, sorry," Ford said. Of course Fiddleford wasn't making fun of the kitten; they'd been friends long enough that Ford knew he wouldn't do something like that. Ford was maybe just a little sensitive about certain things.

"Back home we always called the barn cats after whatever they looked like, Spots, Orange, Blacky, you get the idea. Your kitten's got six toes. No point in pretending he don't, so might as well embrace it," Fiddleford said.

"Sixer." Ford blurted the word out with no conscious awareness of having any intention of doing so until after it was said. Now that he had said it, there was no taking it back, and, you know, he kind of liked it anyway. "I'll call him Sixer."

* * *

It was Ford's understanding most outdoor cats would bring back dead birds and rodents and the like as a "present" for their owners. Sixer routinely brought him live fairies and gnome hats. Ford had the best cat ever.

* * *

 _Burning, burning, everything was burning. People were screaming and above the noise he could hear the sound of Bill's laughter. The world was ending and it was all his fault. Ford_ – just got hit by something in the chest.

He opened his eyes – no, no, no, he couldn't go to sleep – to find Sixer had jumped on top of him and now he and his impressive mass were making themselves comfortable on Ford's chest. Ford should probably push him off – Sixer was heavy, and Ford was not in the best condition he'd ever been, and it was getting harder to breathe than it really should be.

Sixer leaned his face forward to gently bite Ford's nose, then gave him three raspy licks with his tongue. Apparently satisfied, he laid his head down on top of Ford's face, making it even harder to breathe, and began purring loudly. Ford curled up closer around his cat. He couldn't sleep – _he could not sleep_ – but maybe he could rest for just a little while.

* * *

Even in his sleep-deprived, panic-addled state, Ford maintained the presence of mind to hold the elevator open for an extra few seconds to allow Sixer time to board. Sixer immediately began twining between and rubbing up against Ford's legs, until Ford bent down to pick him up. He had been so needy lately, likely because he'd been picking up on Ford's anxiety.

Stan watched the whole interlude with undisguised interest. "So. You've got a cat now?"

"Yes," Ford said. And then because Stan did look genuinely interested and because once upon a time before everything had fallen to pieces Ford had enjoyed telling people about his cat, he added. "His name is Sixer."

* * *

The kunazles of this dimension didn't look much like cats, more like snakes or possibly badgers, but the locals kept them as pets like cats. So when Ford saw a small one on its own by the roadside he reached into his pouch to pull out a small piece of bread – well, he called it bread anyway – and offer it to the creature. Ford hadn't been expecting to keep it, his current lifestyle wasn't the least bit conducive to having a pet, but he had been hoping for a small bit of affection. Instead the creature snatched the bread away, bit him, and ran off.

Ford was not going to get upset about this. It was a feral animal, and that's what feral animals did. He was going to carry on, like he always did. Carry on, and possibly get the bite checked for infection.

* * *

Ford handed the little stick thing the agent had given him off to the goat, then froze. Right there, emerging from behind a tree trunk, was that…? But it couldn't possibly be, it had been thirty years, but… "Sixer?"

"No, Great Uncle Stanford, that's Sixer _Jr._ ," Mabel said. She ran over, scooped the cat up, and then brought him back to show Ford. "I know he looks like Sixer, but you can tell for sure it's Sixer Jr. because he's got six claws on his right front paw, but seven on his left paw, see? He's one of the kittens."

"I mean, technically they aren't kittens. I think they might actually be older than us," Dipper said.

"Yeah, but we all call them the kittens," Mabel countered. "There's Sixer Jr., then Stan Jr. and Ford Jr. They're both brown tabbies with eight toes on both paws, but you can tell them apart because Stan Jr. is only white on the underside of his chin, but on Ford Jr. it goes all the way up to his nose. And then Lady is the calico."

"Kittens?" Ford asked, looking at Stanley.

"Yeah, well it turns out you forgot to have your cat neutered," Stan said.

"I did not." Or more accurately, Fiddleford had had it done when he came to Gravity Falls and diagnosed it as a possible solution to Sixer's spraying.

"Oh. Then whoever did it didn't do a very good job. Or maybe there's something in the water? It would explain how Sixer's been living so long."

"Sixer is _alive_?" How was that possible? Gravity Falls weirdness, obviously, but still… how was that possible?

"He's alive. He's probably sleeping up in my room right now; he's a grumpy old man, doesn't get around much anymore. Did you, uh, did you want to go see him?"

Ford's heart sank. Stan had taken his name, his house, his life, why not take his cat too. "No, that's fine. Let him be."

* * *

Ford couldn't sleep. He'd been lying on the sofa staring at the ceiling for at least two hours, and he couldn't seem to keep his eyes shut. He was plenty tired enough, the couch was comfortable, he was well-fed, he had no real aches or injuries to speak of, and he was miraculously clean for the first time since he couldn't remember when. There was absolutely no reason why he shouldn't have fallen asleep within minutes of laying down. And yet, here he was.

Here he was indeed. Home again after thirty years. It was something he had considered certainly, hoped for even, but not something he ever believed could happen. The odds of it were so vanishingly small as to be mathematically equivalent to zero. It was technically impossible. Ford supposed he shouldn't be surprised that Stan hadn't let that stop him.

The thing of it was, Ford still didn't believe it, not really. He was home, but nothing was the same as he remembered it. Nothing. He'd written in his journal earlier that coming home felt like being awoken from a bizarre thirty year dream, but part of him was convinced he was still dreaming.

As hypervigilant as Ford had become, there was no chance of him missing the soft padding of feet walking across the wood floor. One of Stan's "kittens" he assumed before dismissing the matter. Something that became rather harder to do when a solid twenty pounds of cat leapt up from the floor and straight onto his chest.

After he recovered from getting the wind knocked out of him, Ford stared at the cat with a small amount of trepidation… and hope. The cat certainly looked like the Sixer Jr. he had been introduced to earlier, but, and it was hard to be sure in the darkness, but he thought maybe, possibly it was… "Sixer?"

Ford held his hand out, and the cat carefully sniffed every single one of his fingers before rubbing his head against Ford's hand and purring. It was the purring that sold it. If you had asked Ford not five minutes ago he would have sworn he couldn't possibly remember it, but now, the pitch, the cadence, there was no mistaking that sound. It was Sixer.

"I missed you buddy," Ford said, scratching him behind the ear. Sixer responded by leaning forward to bite his nose, lick it three times, and then laid his head down on top of Ford's face and went to sleep. Ford curled in a little closer around his cat and finally let himself believe that he had really come home. And if he cried a little, well then that was between him and Sixer.

* * *

Sixer began following Ford around the house. Not obviously like a dog might, but anytime Ford was in a room for more than five minutes, Sixer was sure to wander his way into that same room too. It was a comfort and not just because Ford had missed his cat. Stan had stolen Ford's name, his house, his life, and ruined all three in the process. But Sixer at least knew who the real Ford was.

* * *

Ford had to kick the door behind the vending machine open, both his arms being full with the two cats he was carting. Both of them were yowling up a storm, which was not doing Ford's mood any favors. "Stanley!"

"Yeah, what? I'm in here," Stan called back. Ford stomped his way into the living room where Stan was ensconced in his ratty yellow chair and giving Ford an amused but unimpressed look.

"I just found _your_ cats in _my_ basement, where they very nearly broke a very sensitive and _dangerous_ artifact." Ford shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn't caught the Rift and its containment unit when the cats had knocked it off the desk.

"Yeah, they'll do that," Stan said. "So, you going to put them down now or was your plan to carry them around all day?"

Ford glared at his brother before dropping the two cats to the floor. Stan Jr. immediately ran over to Ford Jr. and began sniffing his brother and grooming his face, ministrations which Ford Jr. returned in kind. "Control your cats, Stanley."

"They're _cats_ , Ford. There ain't any controlling them." As though to underscore the point, Stan Jr.'s grooming abruptly turned into a tackle, and suddenly the two of them were racing across the room tussling each other. They passed right in front of Lady, who hissed at them and then jumped up on Stan's lap, and then smacked into Sixer Jr. Sixer Jr. gave Stan Jr. a firm whack on the head, sending him tumbling. Ford Jr. sniffed the spot where Stan Jr. had been hit and gave it a few quick licks, and they were off again, tearing into the kitchen.

Both Stan and Ford watched all that happen, then Stan turned to look at Ford with a raised eyebrow. "Just keep them out of the basement," Ford demanded, then stormed off.

* * *

One second Ford had been floating midair in the town square, trying to remain defiant in the face of Bill's taunting and now he was… somewhere else, being serenaded by Bill playing the piano. It was disorienting to say the least. "Where am I?" he asked.

"You're in the penthouse suite, kid. The tip of the pyramid. Have a drink; make yourself comfortable." Bill said. He snapped his fingers and a martini glass filled with some kind of purple liquid appeared in Ford's hand. Bill drank from his own glass using his eye as a mouth, and why had it taken Ford so long to realize how unsettling that was?

Feeling overwhelmed, Ford stumbled backward and landed on the couch. Bill set his drink down and crinkled his eye in his approximation of a smile. "There you go. I even brought you a little surprise." He waved his hand and a bright blue cage appeared in the air above Ford. The front of the cage swung open, and then the whole thing tilted, upending its contents into Ford's lap.

"Sixer!" Ford cried, clutching the cat to himself like that might provide Sixer any protection from Bill and his insanity. Sixer pressed himself back into Ford's chest as well, while puffing all his fur out and hissing at Bill.

"See, I can be a nice guy; I know how much you humans care about your stupid little pet animals," Bill said. "And trust me, I get it, Fordsy. I really, really do."

* * *

"I think I'm going to kill one of them now just for the heck of it," Bill declared, holding the twins up in front of his giant eye. "Eeny." Pine Tree. "Meeny." Shooting Star. "Miney." Pine Tree. "Y-"

Sixer yowled, running in from the other side of the room and launching himself at Bill. He managed to leap up in the air high enough to sink his claws into Bill's knee, then he began climbing up the front of Bill like a tree. "What is this?" Bill said, sounding more amused than anything. At least, he sounded amused until Sixer climbed up high enough to bite his eye. Bill screamed and batted Sixer away. Sixer smacked into the wall of the Fearamid with a sickening crunch, then his body slid limply down to the floor. "Stupid cat."

Ford wanted to scream. He wanted to wail in anguish. This couldn't be happening; this _couldn't_ be happening. "Stop this, Bill. I surrender," he heard himself say. But it wasn't him at all, it was Stan. Stan was pretending to be him, and Ford had to pretend to be Stan. They had a plan. He had to focus. They had to stop Bill. Sixer… no, focus.

"Don't do it, Ford. It'll destroy the universe."

* * *

Ford wasn't sure what he expected to find when they went searching through the woods for Stan, any number of terrible things probably, but not this. Stan was sitting in the clearing and in his lap was Sixer. Sixer's body.

"Oh my gosh, Grunkle Stan, you did it. And you found Sixer too," Mabel said, rushing up to Stan to put his fez back on for him.

"Oh, uh, hey there… kiddo. Was this your cat?" Stan asked, looking intensely uncomfortable.

Mabel gave an awkward sort of chuckle. "What are you talking about Grunkle Stan? You know Sixer."

"Sorry. I'm not really sure what you're talking about."

"C-c'mon Grunkle Stan. It's Sixer. Grunkle Stan? Grunkle Stan?" Mabel said, getting more insistent and desperate with each repetition. Finally Dipper had to grab on to her and pull her away.

Ford placed a hand on her back, trying to impart some sense of comfort. He wished he could wrap his arms around her, his bright, affectionate optimistic niece, and protect her from these next few moments. He wished he didn't have to admit to her what he'd done. "We had to erase his mind to defeat Bill. It's all gone. Stan has no idea, but he did it. He saved the world. He saved me."

Mabel began crying in earnest, and Dipper held onto her and started crying too. Ford felt awkward, like it was wrong of him to comfort them or share in their grief when he was the one to cause it.

Stan looked about as awkward as Ford felt, though for different reasons entirely. "I'm sorry about your cat," he said to Ford. "I mean I didn't – he was like this when I found him, but, you know, I'm sorry that it happened." Stan glanced down at Sixer's body, and Ford imagined he could see real distress on his face. "He seems like he was a good cat."

"He was the best. And he died a hero. He – he…" Sixer was dead. Sixer was dead, and Stan was… Stan was…

Ford wrapped his arms around his brother and wept.

* * *

"I'm sorry. I don't know what this is or who you are or –"

Lady jumped up and settled herself down on top of the scrapbook, mewing at Stan. "Gah! Get out of here, Lady. I'm trying to remember my life story."

Dipper and Mabel both gasped. "What did you say?" Dipper asked.

"I said get Lady out of here. And someone make sure her brothers aren't getting ready to jump up here as soon as she's gone." That couldn't be a coincidence. The first usage of the word "lady" might have been nothing, but the second time he had clearly been calling her by name, plus the mention of her brothers; no one had said anything to Stan about the other kittens yet.

"It's working. Keep reading."

* * *

Ford knelt down and placed a stone on top of Sixer's gravestone, nestling it amid a few other stones, a penny, and a small garden's-worth of flowers. Those weren't all from the funeral. That had taken place five days ago and the only attendees had been Wendy, who had dug the grave; Mabel, who had made and decorated the coffin; Dipper, who had found the almost perfectly smooth oval rock for the headstone; Ford, who had carved Sixer's name into the stone; Soos, who had given a surprisingly touching eulogy; and Stan. No one had wanted to ask Stan to do anything given he was still recovering from his memory loss, but his contribution was felt, from his solid presence at Ford's side, to the comforting hand he'd rested on Ford's shoulder, to the way he'd tactfully pretended not to notice Ford crying. Granted, that last was a consideration they had all extended to Stan as well. The point being the seven people that had attended the funeral were not nearly enough to explain the profusion of offerings here. The flowers were all fairly fresh, so Ford would guess when people had come to Dipper and Mabel's party yesterday they had also stopped by to pay their respects, which just left the question of how anyone knew the grave was here in the first place. Ford suspected that was Stan's contribution as well.

He had initially only been intending on placing the stone and staying for no more than a minute or two, but now that he was here, Ford found himself sitting down in grass next to the grave. He thought about all the years he and Sixer had spent together, and the years apart. He thought about all the sweet things Sixer had done over the years and the funny and the annoying and the adorable and thought about the way Sixer, despite the typical cat-like streak of independence, had always been there for Ford when he needed him, in whatever way he could be. And for the first time since Sixer passed, the memories only hurt a little bit.

He must have sat there for a long while, because eventually Stan came looking for him. "There you are." He gave a glance at the grave, followed by a long searching look of Ford's face. "You okay?"

"I think so," Ford said, his tone more optimistic than his ambivalent answer might suggest. "After seeing the kids off today, I just wanted to stop by here for a little. It seemed like a good day for goodbyes."

"No such thing as a good day for goodbyes," Stan said, and there was something – bitterness maybe? – in his tone. Then he sighed and sat down across from Ford, keeping his knees tucked up so he wouldn't be on top of Sixer's grave. "Still, I guess if you've gotta say goodbye, there could be a lot worse days for it."

Ford gave his brother a sly smile. "So, relatively speaking, it's a good day for goodbyes."

"Yeah, Ford, sure," Stan said rolling his eyes. "What'd I ever do to be saddle with such an obnoxious brother, huh?"

Stan only meant it as a joke, but Ford had been thinking about that a lot lately. Ever since he lost his brother by his own hand. There was something he'd been meaning to say to Stan, but he never seemed to be able to bring the topic up. "A lot," Ford said. "You did a lot to bring back home to you. While objectively it was still the wrong thing to do, considering it now, I don't think I could have done anything different. And even if it was the wrong thing, the sentiment and the amount of effort are worthy of appreciation. So thank you, Stanley. I'm glad to be home."

"I…" Stan covered his mouth and cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. "You're welcome."

"And thank you to for taking care of Sixer for me while I was gone," Ford said.

"Of course I did. I was trying to keep everything in this place the same as when you left. Obviously I did a pretty terrible job at that, but… he was your cat. I had to take care of him. And, you know, it wasn't like having the little guy around was a huge hardship or anything."

Ford smiled at his brother. As much as he thought of Sixer as his cat, Ford had to acknowledge that after all these years, he had been Stan's cat too. They both were going to miss him. But between saying goodbye to the kids and his graveside vigil and their conversation just now, Ford was fast approaching his limits for heady emotion in one day, so he changed the subject to something lighter. "You never did tell me how you ended up looking after a whole litter of Sixer's kittens."

"Huh, I guess I didn't," Stan said. "Well I don't know if you knew, but Northwest's mother still lived in the mansion with him and his wife and kid until about, maybe ten years ago. And rich people always gotta have some kind of weird rich person hobby, right? Hers was breeding Maine Coon cats."

Ford's eyes went wide with delighted amusement. "He didn't."

"He sure did. Sixer snuck into Northwest manor and had himself a good old time with her prized cat Duchess. The old lady was spitting mad; Sixer probably was a Maine Coon, or part anyway, but he didn't have the fancy pure-breed pedigree she wanted, so apparently this litter of kittens was ruined, and it undermined whatever weird breeding thing she was doing. It was pretty funny, right up until she threatened to drown the kittens once they were born."

"She did what?" Ford exclaimed. His hands flexed instinctively with the desire to grab hold of all the kittens and keep them safe from that horrible, horrible woman.

"Yeah, so I told her I wasn't afraid to beat up an old lady, and I would take the kittens. I thought for sure she was going to pass them off to me the minute they were born, but Duchess was actually fond of her kids – a foreign concept to the Northwests I'm sure – so she relented and agreed to keep them with their mom for a month. I think I was planning on giving them away, but they were Sixer's family. I couldn't do that to him."

Wasn't that exactly like Stan? "You're a good man," Ford said.

"Ha, shows what you know."

"A lot more than I did a week ago," Ford retorted.

Before Stan could come up with another comeback, they were joined by two more graveside visitors. Their careful amble did it's best to project they hadn't been looking for Stan and Ford, oh no, they'd just happened to be in the area. It was slightly less than convincing, especially when Lady immediately walked up to Stan and began pawing at his leg and mewing piteously until he scooted back to make room for her in his lap. Sixer Jr. meanwhile climbed into Ford's lap and gave him a look that demanded pets and attention.

"Hello there," Ford said, scratching under Sixer Jr. chin. "Where are your other two brothers?"

"Knowing Stan Jr. and Ford Jr., probably getting into trouble somewhere," Stan said as he stroked Lady.

Ford chuckled. "Probably. It is kind of nice to know that even once we leave for our trip, there will still be a Stan and Ford running around getting into trouble in Gravity Falls."

"Somebody's got to stay and watch so Soos doesn't make a mess of things," Stan said. "But you know we're taking these two on the boat with us, right?"

Ford ought to point out that two cats used to having free range of the Oregon wilderness probably wouldn't enjoy being cooped up in an enclosed space, that cats and water traditionally didn't mix, and that the boat would probably be cramped enough with just the two of them, never mind adding two cats to the mix. He scratched Sixer Jr. behind the ear and was rewarded with a rumbling purr that was almost, but not quite, identical to his father's. "Of course we are." He wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

AN: "What greater gift than the love of a cat." -Charles Dickens

(Also, if anyone was wondering, it was something in the water. Specifically the pixie's healing spring which only works on pixies and, oddly enough, cats.)


End file.
